Wish Upon a Star
by Ninetailsjinx
Summary: The Dark Knight's prodigal son; Tamaran's lost daughter; Hell's Spawn; the Beast's calm; and mankind's bio-punked future: this is the story of their 'after'. Find out what happens when the credits stop rolling and the Titans return to Jump City to tie up some loose ends.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello and thank you for joining me for my third fic. Yes, I've been bad and haven't posted anything in months, but I have about sixty pages written for this story and none for part two of my "Aftershocks" story, so here we go. I admit it's off to a slow start-unashamed fluff for this first chapter-but I wanted to give everyone a nice night in Tokyo before making them miserable in Jump City. But I've said too much! Go ahead, read for yourselves...**

**_Chapter One, _**

_"This has to be one of the best moments of my life,"_ Robin thought as he waved to the thronging Tokyo crowds that had gathered to celebrate the Titans' victory over the deceitful Commander Daizo and the legendary Brushogun.

In a moment of boldness, Robin grabbed Starfire's hand and held onto it tightly, ignoring the blush that crept over him as Starfire looked at him in surprise and smiled widely at him. His new medal—courtesy of Tokyo's appreciative mayor-weighed satisfactorily against his chest; his friends surrounded him, safe, unharmed and similarly elated; and somewhere, he knew Bruce would be watching.

The Titans had originally planned on leaving as soon as they'd showered Brushogun's ink off of their bodies, but Mayor Tsukino had wanted them to stay for an award ceremony in their honor, and the rest of the team had been so excited that Robin had eventually conceded. He'd surprised even himself when he decided to put frivolity ahead of duty this time, but his friends had caught him at just the right moment: he'd reclaimed his rightful reputation, defeated Tokyo's big bad with the help of his team, and finally summoned the courage to kiss Starfire.

He still felt on fire from that last one

"_And there'll be more where that came from once were back in Jump,"_ he thought, then cringed inwardly. _"Along with a million questions from the both of us about what the kiss means for the future-hers, mine, and the Titans-why it didn't happen any sooner and how we'll balance this new relationship with pre-established team dynamics."_ He sighed and brushed away the thought. _"But that's still a ways away. Here in Tokyo, we don't have to think about it, yet."_

A prearranged signal from the mayor sent Robin and his friends shuffling obediently to the side of the stage where a line of five chairs had been set up for them to enjoy the rest of the ceremony. _"A little more of this and we'll be on our way," _he grinned at Starfire and tried to ignore Cyborg's waggling eyebrows, _"And me and Starfire can resume what we were doing earlier."_

TeenTitansTeenTitansTeenTitansTeenTitansTeen

Two hours, three speeches, and one J-Pop performance later, the streets were still filled with groups of people, and Robin was ready to leave.

He appreciated the cheering, the adoration-except from the fangirls who kept trying to swarm the stage-but his patience for all the cameras and crowds had about run out. He'd played the diligent diplomat when he accepted the Mayor's invitation to the award ceremony, then obliged the request to make the event public. He even agreed to let Starfire speak a few words in Japanese on the Titan's behalf to express their enthusiasm and accept the city's warm welcome. He had stopped at the parade, much to Beast Boy's chagrin, but wasn't everything else enough?

Robin perked up as the colorfully dressed singers left the stage with enthusiastic waves and farewells, their band mates' instruments left behind them for a later pickup.

_"Finally," _he griped to himself and glanced over at his fellow teammates. Robin couldn't see Raven's facial expression beneath her shadowy hood, but knew her crossed arms would reflect a cross expression and cross attitude; Cyborg kept licking his lips and tapping his toes, suggesting hunger and boredom; Beast Boy looked energized and excited, but Robin could tell by the drool on his uniform that he had probably just woken up from the hour and a half snore-fest that had preceded the dancing; Starfire looked cheerful as usual-she seemed to have genuinely enjoyed the celebration, having applauded with the crowd in between speakers, gasping and nodding sagely at appropriate intervals during speeches, and whooping with the screaming teens during the surprise concert. She giggled when she caught him staring at her and pointed to the Mayor as he walked to center stage.

Mayor Tsukino spoke a few words into the microphone, smiling, and beckoned to the Titans with a grand sweeping motion. The crowd started cheering raucously, which gave Robin a bad feeling.

_"I don't think they want to let us leave quite yet,"_ he thought mournfully. "Hey, Star," he yelled loudly, "What did he say?" At that, the other three Titans tuned in.

"He declared it is time for the citizens to meet their newest heroes," she explained joyfully. "We are to engage in the mingling."

Robin kept his expression neutral, conscious of the cameras focused on his every muscle twitch. But he knew Raven could sense his dread, and a single glance at her confirmed she looked forward to 'mingling' even less than he.

Beast Boy and Cyborg exchanged looks as well.

"What chu' think, B?" the cybernetic teen asked.

"I think I can handle it," the changeling grinned, jerking a finger at the group of young women blowing him kisses. He indicated the food stands in the background next. "And if you work it just right, there should be something in it for you, too."

"I'm sold!" Cyborg barked, jumping to his feet and following Beast Boy to the stairs.

Starfire tugged on both Robin and Raven's hands, but only the empath would allow herself to be budged. With a pout, Starfire turned back toward the Boy Wonder and extended her free hand. "Will you not come, Robin?" she pleaded.

He sighed and waved her away, "I'll catch up in a minute," he assured her. She brightened and bounded forward to kiss his cheek, thankfully angling her head so that her mass of hair covered her lips. He barely caught Raven's conspiratorial smile before Starfire whisked her away.

Robin stood there for a moment with his arms crossed until Mayor Tsukino approached him. "Go on," Tsukino encouraged him in accented English, wearing a practiced, plastered smile. "Give them a show."

So he did. With a smirk, Robin gave the mayor a mischievous "Okay," then took a few steps forward to ensure he had enough space before executing a series of back flips and back handsprings to cross the expansive stage. As he neared the stairs he pulled his arms in around his legs for a back tuck and extracted some smoke bombs from his belt. He landed a single step before the end of the stage and launched off again, setting off his smoke bombs as he reached the apex of his jump. The entire area engulfed in thick smoke, he made a mad dash beneath the set.

He sniggered to himself as he crawled on his stomach to one of the crisscrossing support beams beneath the stage and settled to wait-out the crowds.

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The rush of the disappearance and the relief of escaping the camera's eye had been enough to keep Robin content for a while as he caught his breath betwixt the wooden beams, but twenty minutes of waiting made him cranky and bored. _"And I doubt I'd be able to escape without attracting attention again."_

He sighed, his legs draped lazily on either side of the wood, fervently trying not to feel ungrateful for his situation as he observed his teammates through the wooden slats that surrounded the platform and hid the beams.

Cyborg stood amidst the food carts that had been erected at the back of the crowd, content with the unending supply of food from his fans. It seemed that as long as he had an edible gift in front of him, he had the energy to sign autographs and pose for pictures.

Starfire and Beast Boy positively basked in the spotlight, surrounded by people who not only appreciated their abilities but also the diversity of their appearance. As the changeling had predicted upon the team's arrival in Japan, the ladies loved his elven ears, and he'd been swarmed by screaming teenaged girls.

Starfire, able to speak the local language and blessed with far more patience than Robin would ever have, had connected with the populace immediately. She'd greeted them with shy salutations, but the warm welcome she'd received inspired her to boldness, and she had been kissing babies and shaking hands ever since. Robin had prepared himself for the inevitable onslaught of male suitors who usually surrounded the Tamaranian beauty, but they seemed to prefer Raven instead.

Based on what Robin had seen during the Titans' stay, the sorceress's ultra-pale pallor and relatively diminutive stature matched Japanese beauty ideals, and it earned her a myriad of admirers from both sexes-not that she appreciated the attention. The half-demon sorceress seemed likely to disintegrate something after all the poking she'd endured from women jabbing at her skin and chattering away at her about who knew what, but from the increasingly irritating expression on Raven's face, Robin figured the men made her far more uncomfortable. They looked at her suggestively and tried varying tactics to attract her eye, some with the cloying subtlety of curious suitors, others hitting on her with the intensity of a battering ram against a castle door. Unfortunately for the men, Raven rammed back, and the first time one of the men grabbed her for a hug, Raven shoved him to the ground and extracted herself from her fans by summoning her soul-self and disappeared with an indignant shriek from her raven.

_"Now's my chance!"_ Robin thought. He sat up on the beam and snatched up his communicator. _"Maybe she'll come back and rescue me."_

Raven answered the call looking somewhat annoyed, perched on her bed back at the hotel. "What do you want? I finally found a book I can read."

"How about a pick up?"

"Sick of hiding beneath the stage?" she snickered.

"How did you know-"

"You couldn't have gotten far dressed as a traffic light."

"Are you going to help me out or what?"

"You're the one who agreed to this torture," she drawled, "It's fitting you should have to endure it to the end."

"Are you really just going to leave me here?"

"You abandoned us, it's fair I do the same," she teased, then hung up on him.

He grunted and prepared to make another call. "I can't deal with this much longer," he said to himself, and waited for his remaining teammates to recognize the vibrating of their T-comms.

Cyborg answered first, his face stuffed full of sushi and looming over the built-in console. "'Sup, Rob, finally get bored'a all them boys drooling over your girl?"

Cyborg's image shrank to make room for Starfire's. "I believe the only drooling done has been by you over the vast offerings of food I see surrounding you."

Beast Boy's answering guffaw sounded as he popped up on the left, sharing an even third of the screen with his friends. "Good one, Star!" he shouted over the din of clamoring voices.

"Titans," Robin called out to get their attention. "Prepare for a quick extraction."

"Sick of crouching under the stage?" Beast Boy teased.

"How did you-" Robin started.

Cyborg interrupted. "Crouchin', BB? Nah, short stuff pry has room to spare standing tall."

"Come on, guys, we need to get ready to go back home," Robin complained grumpily.

"Shall we pick you up behind the stage?" Starfire asked politely. "There is an empty space of about five of the feet between it and the wall where we might make 'the getaway."

Robin smiled. "I guess my hiding spot wasn't as good as I thought it'd be."

"Dude," Beast Boy smirked at him and crossed his arms. "You wear Christmas colors on your uniform—we don't expect you to be subtle."

Robin ignored him. "Thanks, Star. See you soon?"

"Very," she answered and signed off.

"Beast Boy, will you grab Cyborg and follow?"

The changeling's face crumpled. "But...the ladies!" He pouted.

"This is not a vacation, Beast Boy. We have duties back home."

"S'alright, man," Cyborg interjected. "We'll go trollin' back home."

Robin doubted that-interaction with the opposite sex of a flirtatious nature flared up Cyborg's insecurities-but Robin appreciated the support.

Beast Boy seemed to see through Cyborg's offer as well. "Deal," he said enthusiastically, but with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Movement caught his eye and he turned in time to see Starfire's boots touch down on the pavement behind the stage. She knelt down and waved emphatically, her smile dazzling even in the dim light.

"Hey!" he grinned back and crept toward her.

"Greetings," she whispered when he reached her and held out her hand. Robin took it gratefully and allowed himself to be pulled out into the open.

"Are you taller than usual?" He asked, frowning at the ostensibly increased height distance between the two of them.

"Oh," she exclaimed and looked down. His gaze followed hers to her feet which hovered several inches off of the ground. "I cannot seem to ground myself," she explained.

His heart fluttered at that. "That should make it easier to take us back to the hotel then, right?"he asked.

"It would be the pleasure of mine."

Starfire grasped Robin's hands and propelled upward. They spotted a green pterodactyl as soon as they popped up over the stage, a gleeful Cyborg held firmly in its claws.

"Robin and Starfire sittin' in a tree," the cybernetic teen sang at the top of his voice.

"Stuff it, Cyborg," Robin yelled back.

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"I mean it! Beast Boy, Starfire, back to the hotel."

The changeling and the Tamaranian did as asked, but Cyborg only yelled louder.

"First comes love-"

"Beast Boy, drop Cyborg," Robin commanded.

"Then comes marriage-

"Now, Beast Boy!"

"Then comes the baby in the ahhh!" Cyborg screamed as his teammate released his grip on his metal shoulders and he began plummeting to Earth.

"Robin, you should not abuse your leadership role simply because Cyborg annoys you," Starfire chastised him laughingly.

"But he said-"

"I heard him, it is no excuse."

"Alright," he sighed in mock exasperation. "Beast Boy, go get him."

Beast Boy morphed back into his human form just long enough to give a salute and an "Aye, aye, Captain," before cannon-balling toward his charge.

"Happy, now?" he pouted.

Starfire giggled a light, tinkling laugh and Robin couldn't maintain his frown any longer. "I will be once we achieve our head start," she replied, and flew off with a burst of speed.

The pair entered the hotel still holding hands from their flight. "I cannot believe you ordered Beast Boy to do the dropping of Cyborg!" Starfire guffawed.

Robin laughed in return. "He was getting on my nerves. I know we have a lot of teasing coming our way, but hopefully if we start if all off with threats of bodily damage he'll lay off sooner rather than later."

"Azar!" Raven called from her room. "Robin, if you continue to interrupt my concentration I will threaten you with bodily damage."

The couple exchanged wide-eyed looks of astonishment before erupting in quiet laughter. Robin embraced Starfire in an effort to settle her quaking giggles, putting his hand over her mouth and holding her against him.

She let loose a few more laughs and folded against him with a contented sigh.

Robin gulped and moved his hand from her mouth to catch a strand of red hair and placed it behind her ear. He wrapped his other hand around her waist and gently rubbed his index finger in lazy circles at the base of her spine, just above her skirt's waist line.

Starfire's eyes closed to half-mast and Robin leaned forward, then stopped as he heard a maladroit clomping outside their door. The door burst open and Cyborg stumbled in, clutching his heart and wheezing.

"Man that was so not cool," he huffed. Beast Boy followed in behind him, cackling. "Having BB scare the livin' daylights outta me 'cause I made a little-" his head snapped up and his eyes bulged. "You two at it again?"

Robin jumped away from Starfire and started sputtering an explanation, half-embarrassed, half-incensed and unable to articulate a dignified response because of it.

Raven saved him the necessity of speaking when she hovered into the room, her cloak flapping dramatically and her hood flipped up. "What did I warn you about interruptions?"

"Cut the attitude, Raven," Robin snapped at her. "You'll have plenty of time to read on the trip back."

Raven stopped. "Fine by me," she grumbled. She dropped a few inches to the floor and resumed walking normally; even her cloak followed her more meekly than before.

"What?" Beast Boy wailed from across the room. "But my fans! They'll riot if I'm not here to fulfill my promises to them about my book and picture signings tonight."

"What are you talking about?" Robin asked, unamused.

"Yeah, you haven't written any books for them to sign," Raven added.

The changeling stuck his tongue out in Raven's direction and looked back at Robin. "Dude, you saw how crazy the ladies were for me at the award ceremony. They asked me to meet them tonight for a signing."

"How'd you know what they said?" Cyborg asked skeptically.

Beast Boy brandished a pocket-sized pad of paper from his belt and proudly raised it into the air. "Phrasebook, baby."

Raven voiced Robin's thoughts before he could recover enough to answer.

"I don't even want to know how badly this turns out. I'll be in my room packing if anyone needs me," she monotoned and walked back out.

"Don't give me that look, Beast Boy," Robin sighed as he spotted the green retriever mewing at his feet and looking up at him with a sweet, pleading gaze. "It only works on Starfire."

He looked to the Tamaranian in question and found her wearing the same expression, her eyes wide and her lips quivering. _"I'm going to have to be careful,"_ Robin realized, _"her puppy dog eyes are considerably more persuasive than Beast Boy's."_

"Please, Robin," she purred. "With our Titan duties, I rarely have time to learn about Earth's cultures and X'hal knows when I might obtain another opportunity to explore Japan again."

His mind blanked. _"Why did we need to leave so badly?" _he asked himself. _"Titans East is taking care of..."_

"Titans East!" he blurted out loud.

"I can check with 'em to see if they'd give us an extra day, Rob," Cyborg offered.

"Um," Robin stalled lamely, but Cyborg had already accessed his built-in arm console to call Bumblebee.

"Bee!" he yelled in greeting. "What's happenin', girl?"

The voice of the Titan's East branch sounded loudly and enthusiastically over Cyborg's speakers. "Nothin' much, Sparky. The city's been pretty quiet with the Brotherhood Baddies still on ice. Red X came to say 'hi,' but the little snake slithered off before we could bag him."

"We ain't done any better, Bee," Cyborg said, shaking his head sympathetically. "So I can't hold that against you."

"When you coming home, anyway?" she asked, changing topics.

"That's why I called. We saved the day alright-'cause that's how we roll-but we were hoping if Jump didn't prove too troublesome you'd be willing to keep watch over it 'til tomorrow night."

Bumblebee took a few seconds to consider. "Yeah, I suppose we could do that," she said in a voice that pretended to hesitate.

"Thanks, Bee," Cyborg grinned.

"Don't thank me yet, Sparky; you'll owe me for this. We got some equipment over in Steel City that needs your attention."

"You got it," he promised.

An alarm sounded in the background.

"Sorry, Sparky, but that's my cue!"

"You be careful, girl," he warned.

"Ain't nothing we can't handle, babe," she said playfully.

Cyborg looked up from his console. "Well I guess we're off the hook for the night."

"I don't know," Robin said uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck.

Starfire yanked on the green sleeve on Robin's tunic. "Robin, I implore you, do the relaxing for one night; Titans East has provided their support, and Beast Boy will lament this missed opportunity for months if he cannot attend his signing."

"Yeah," Beast Boy agreed. "I'll lament so hard-you'll really regret it."

Robin abstained from rolling his eyes and kept his attention firmly fixed on the golden Tamaranian gazing at him with a pleading look on her face.

"You could accompany me on my adventuring," she offered.

Robin gulped. "I could?"

"Yes, I have heard there are many beautiful places to visit, and delicious foods to eat. Perhaps we could enjoy dinner and then visit the shoreline and compare how the ocean looks from this side of the hemisphere."

_"Is she asking me out on a date?"_ Robin wondered. "That sounds great," he agreed.

"Glorious," she smiled back. "I should like to avoid attention tonight, so I will dress in the clothes of the civilian. Will you follow the suit?"

"Yeah, I'll wear a suit-er, follow suit."

"I shall meet you back here in an hour, then," she said, and floated off to her room.

Beast Boy and Cyborg fist-bumped. "Nice," the changeling whispered.

Robin gave him a pointed look. "Don't push it," he warned, but failed to look intimidating since he couldn't stop smiling.

"Yeah right, dude," Beast Boy smirked and let out a cackle as he and Cyborg backed into their rooms.

Robin stood alone for a second, then tensed. _"Civies!"_ he remembered. He looked at the clock on the wall. "I have to go shopping!" he panicked, and rushed for the exit.

**Next chapter: The Date.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone, sorry I've taken such a long hiatus. I've really been battling major writer's block on this part, mostly because I am completely unfamiliar with Japanese culture and I don't want to make mistakes in my descriptions. But here's the next chapter, and I promise to have the next within the week. It only needs edited so I shouldn't have too much of a problem with it.**

**Thanks for the follows and reviews, especially to Aspectabund: I truly appreciated the detail in your critique. And yes, at times I can admit Robin was a bit too at ease with himself, but I will be sure to watch out for it in the future. :)**

Starfire opened her bedroom door exactly sixty minutes later to find Robin on the other side of it, his fist raised to knock on the wood, his mouth open in preparation of calling on her. His eyes widened beneath his mask when he saw her, and his hand fell limply to the side of his black dress slacks.

"Does the _grishnik _have your tongue?" she teased. She smiled sweetly and smoothed out the silk material of her new dress, which looked like a modernized Japanese kimono trimmed in violet, sleeveless and shortened to her mid-thigh. She had picked it up on a whim during one of the Titans' rare free moments in the city after the lavender cherry blossom print had caught her eye in a merchant's window. She had hoped she would have a reason to wear it eventually, but had not dreamed it would be this soon.

_"Grishnik?"_ Robin normalized his expression with a shake of his head. "Ah no, um, are you ready to go?"

She nodded enthusiastically and stepped into the suite's living room area.

"You look nice, by the way," Robin mumbled, and reached up to unbutton the top of his blue dress shirt.

Starfire's smile faltered. _"Nice?"_

"Whew buddy where'd you find yourself such a gorgeous lookin' model?" Cyborg questioned from the couch. He grinned widely and walked over to them as Robin fumbled for a response, then clapped a hand on the Boy Wonder's shoulder.

"Now y'all have a nice time out there tonight and don't stay out too long," he said, looking at Starfire. His smile turned to a mocking frown as he turned his attention to Robin. "Remember to treat our girl like a lady, Bird Boy; don't try anything fresh with her."

"Fresh?" Starfire questioned.

"Ignore him, Star," Robin told her and extracted himself from the larger man's grip. "We'll be fine," he reassured Cyborg and headed for the door. He opened it for Starfire and directed her through it with an 'after you' motion of his hand, but paused before venturing past himself. "I'd better not spot any rocket propelled arms with finger-mounted cameras while we're out, by the way."

Starfire could not see Cyborg from her vantage point in the hallway, but she heard his deep-throated chuckle. "Shoot, I don't have time for chaperonin' tonight; I'm off to find a souvenir for my baby back home."

"Bumblebee?" Robin guessed, grinning wickedly.

"The T-Car, you spiky-headed little-Hey!" Cyborg's insult was cut off when Robin shut the door behind them.

Robin continued chuckling as he offered Starfire his arm. "Shall we?"

She looped her arm around his. "We shall."

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"You spiky-headed little-Hey!" Cyborg shouted as something smacked against the metallic side of his head. He turned around to see a book zooming its way back through the open door to Raven's room like a demonic librarian boomerang. "What was that for?" he asked, indignant.

"I'm reading," Raven answered. "Keep it down."

Before Cyborg could reply, the sorceress swept her door close with the wave of a hand.

To her closed door he grumbled, "Well I'm goin' shoppin' for my baby." He stomped toward the exit and continued mumbling. "Stupid little punk, stupid smelly books."

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Tokyo greeted Starfire and Robin with a rush of sound and neon lights when they exited the hotel. At dusk the streets were clogged with traffic, the sidewalks congested with pedestrians walking alongside the buildings that stretched for miles around them and many stories above them. The chaos of the scene comforted Starfire in its familiarity; but for the foreign roads and ubiquitous kanji symbols that painted every surface, she could almost be home again.

She squinted her eyes against the setting sun as she searched for the picturesque Tokyo Tower. She had been taught at a young age that the best way to orient oneself in a foreign place was to identify a landmark that could be used to navigate the land or sky—the taller, the better, because visibility was key. In Jump, she used Titan Tower as her reference point; in Tokyo, she used the 1,093 foot tall tower in Shiba Park. Modeled after Paris's Eiffel Tower, the Tokyo Tower had been built to aid broadcast signals, and had since then become a major tourist attraction—or so the brochure she had read had told her. She saw it everywhere in Tokyo: on the cards of post and television, in commercials and even on the mugs of coffee—she had even purchased a mug the same day she had found her dress, and had stowed it away in hopes it would serve as the 'souvenir' Beast Boy insisted she should buy.

Her eyes soon adjusted to make out the distinct shape of the city's second tallest structure hiding in the setting sun's rays. It sat on there on the horizon like a needle set to puncture the bloated underside of the melon-shaped star resting at its tip. She blinked. The image reminded her of a tapestry that hung in the royal chambers of the Grand Ruler on Tameran. It depicted a group of people laboring to build a structure tall enough to reach the sun. Legend held that the architects sought to climb into the sun's sphere and steal all of its light. The Tameranian architects wanted to keep their planet forever enshrined in life-giving light that would grow their crops tall and healthy; the Gordanians working alongside them hoped to be rid of the searing light that kept them in their caves during the daytime, which took many sleep cycles to pass.

When the architects grew close enough to touch the sun, it melted the tower's stone, and the structure began to collapse. The Gordanians turned to ash as their scales contacted the shining rays, but the Tameranians swallowed the sun and used it to fly, escaping their deaths and earning the eternal hatred of the remaining Gordanians, who became convinced the Tameranians had betrayed their people.

So had begun the feud that began countless years before.

Starfire had never put much stock in symbolism. Most likely, the racial tensions that existed between their people originated with the Gordanians' deplorable habit of slaving other races—particularly from their neighboring planet of Tameran. Still, the sign of a pierced sun remained a double-sided portent in her culture: it meant that good things would come, but at a terrible cost.

_"Stop being superstitious,"_ she chastised herself. _"All it means is that Earthlings are fond of constructing needle-shaped buildings."_

"Do you know where you'd like to eat dinner tonight?" Robin prompted her. "I got a couple of referrals for restaurants in the area—"

Starfire gasped. "Robin!" she chided, "This is our last night in Tokyo; we cannot waste any of the time sitting down to eat. There are too many things to see."

Robin rested a hand against the back of his neck. "Are you proposing we skip dinner?

"No," she giggled. "I propose we eat and explore simultaneously."

He joined her in her laughter. "Okay, we can try that. What do you say we check out one of the marketplaces nearby? We can grab some food from the stands and check out the sights."

"That sounds delightful," Starfire agreed. She held out her hand and floated a few inches off of the ground. "Let us go."

Robin lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Starfire's shoulders, pulling her down. "We're incognito, remember?"

Starfire giggled. "You are wearing a mask and I have gold-orange skin, it is difficult to remain in the 'cognito,' but I concede to your point."

"The closest market is only a few blocks away," he assured her and grabbed her hand, "Let's walk there."

They caught stares as they made their way towards whatever destination Robin had in mind. As Starfire had pointed out already, both of them garnered attention and their celebrity statuses made them easily recognizable, but living in Jump City had long desensitized her against inappropriate gawking.

The final corner they turned revealed a wide alley-like space filled with brightly covered tents of metal and heavy fabric. The inside wall of the tents opened up to the streets and extended cover to customers by forming a partition above the road. Neon signs and yellow lamps lit up the area at this time of day, chasing the shadows away for a few more hours and lending a friendly mood to the otherwise cacophonous atmosphere of merchants hawking their wares to hungry patrons.

Robin glanced at her and jerked a thumb at the marketplace. "This okay for you?"

Starfire squeezed his hand reassuringly. "Yes," she said.

They advanced toward the market together.

**Not very long but it's a start, right?**

**Next chapter: The date continues, and we'll find out what Raven and Beast Boy do on their last night in Tokyo.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Did I say I'd post within a week? I meant ten days. XD Here you go: let the fluffiness continue.**

"Do you see anything that entices you?" Starfire asked as they considered the myriad choices the market place offered.

_"That's a double entendre,"_ Robin thought as his eyes drifted from the backs of Starfire's tan calves to the shadows her dress created on her thighs..._ "Stop staring!" _he admonished himself for the umpteenth time that day.

He forced his attention back to the displays that lined the tents on either side of them. The selection of squiggling, wiggling, recently wriggling sea foods did not look appetizing, and he grimaced inwardly. _"Don't they have pizza here?" _he wondered.

Even as a young trapeze performer traveling on the road with his parents in Hayley's Circus, he'd had a limited diet. In addition to the usual vegetables most kids despised, the youngest Flying Grayson habitually refused to try the local cuisine of the towns they passed through, and he virtually lived off of macaroni 'n cheese and hot dogs. It had taken the Batman to change his mind by making it a condition of their partnership that young Master Grayson always eat whatever meal Albert placed in front of him. Dick had agreed with one exception: seafood.

And now he was surrounded by it.

"Is something wrong?" Starfire asked. Only then did he realize the scrunched up expression of distaste he'd been wearing.

"This looks like Tameranian food," he answered absently.

Starfire's face broke out into one of delight. "My thoughts exactly," she agreed. She pointed to a counter serving fresh squid. "That reminds me of the _mirnik_-except _mirnik_ have more tentacles and move through our desserts instead of oceans. And that-" she directed him to a tent with bowls of steaming, thick udon noodles, "-looks like _perk_ _lish_."

_"It looks disgusting,"_ Robin thought. _"Like…worms or something."_

_"Deedon?" _Starfire whispered. She rushed up to a display of rice-themed dishes that looked like flattened California rolls.

Robin chuckled and stood beside her. "I think that's sushi. Want to try some?"

"I do," she answered, and directed her attention to the merchant manning the counter. _"Konnichiwa,"_ she said and bowed.

_"Konnichiwa,"_ he repeated, blushing furiously.

Starfire said something in Japanese and gestured toward the sushi to which the merchant responded by began piling a generous portion of the thick rolls into a paper bag. Starfire pulled her wallet out from her skirt pocket but the merchant shook his head and waved away her money. At first she seemed confused, but after hearing the merchant's response, she smiled, bowed and bid him farewell, then walked back to Robin with her free dinner in hand.

"I take it you have a fan?" Robin asked as she rejoined him.

Starfire's cheeks flushed. "He wished to express gratitude for our actions in the city," she explained. "And asked that I accept this _futomaki _as a humble tribute. Now we must find something for you."

Robin's stomach churned at the thought. "I'm really not that hungry."

Starfire frowned. "Surely you can find something. What all have you eaten since you arrived?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Breakfast muffins from the hotel and fast food from the American-themed restaurants nearby, mostly."

Her frown deepened.

"What can I say," he shrugged. "I'm not big on trying new foods."

She grabbed his hand and levitated a few inches off of the ground, which drew more audacious looks and prompted louder commentary from those who already had been staring at them.

"Um-"

"Come, we shall explore," she declared and started dragging him behind her.

They bounced from cart to cart, asking questions about the food offered and accepting occasional samples, all of which Starfire loved and Robin hated. Starfire surprised Robin with her knowledge of his tastes; for every question he managed to answer, she answered two before he had a chance to reply.

"You do not care for the fish that has been filleted, so we will avoid that, but what of the fish fry?" she asked as they approached a stand piled with fresh fish. The smell wrinkled his nostrils. Without looking at him, Starfire began shaking her head. "No, no of course not, which rules out the eggs of fish as well," she decided, glancing at the beds of jelly-like marbles at the end of the counter.

"Fish of the shells?" she mused as they neared a shelf of mollusks, "Too messy with the..." she paused to consider the word, causing Robin to almost slam into her back. She looked back at him. "Slurping?" she tried.

"Yes," he confirmed.

Starfire became fixated on something past his ear. Her eyes narrowed to a squint, then widened. She dashed toward whatever had caught her eye, whirling Robin around and dragging him to it.

His eyes fell on the cardboard containers filled with fist-sized portions of spindly brown sticks. He looked at Starfire uncertainly.

"I should have remembered this earlier," she said excitedly. "I ate it our first day here-tempura: deep-fried pieces of food of the sea and vegetables."

Robin perked up. "Deep-fried?"

"Yes. Deep-fried is good, correct?"

He grinned. "Deep-fried is always good."

After Robin selected from a good-sized portion of mushroom- and vegetable-themed tempura, the merchant gathered everything into something Starfire called a 'bento box': a small cardboard tray with tall siding whose sections were separated by small compartments.

This merchant had no qualms taking the Titans' money, but bowed to them consistently throughout the transaction.

"_Arigato," _Starfire thanked him and returned a bow. Robin repeated the phrase and action and together they waded through the street crowd to the market's end.

"If only we could find a place to sit," Starfire said. She picked a sushi roll out of the bag and looked dismayed as some of the rice grains crumbled away. "This is not the finger food I had thought it would be."

"I just wish we could find some privacy," Robin muttered. "They'd picked up quite a following during their walk through the market, and as he and Starfire exited onto the street, their growing fan base poured out after them.

"Hmm," Starfire tapped her chin thoughtfully. Again her eyes drifted to an object unseen in the distance. Her lips curved into a smile. "I have a solution for both of our problems. Would you hold this?" she asked and held out her sushi bag. "You may wish to place your tempura in with it." He did so and looked at her curiously as she wrapped her arms around him. "Hold on," she whispered, and bolted into the sky.

TeenTitansTeenTitansTeenTitansTeenTitans

"No!" Beast Boy's panicked cry reverberated throughout the hotel suite.

Raven bolted upright from her bed where she'd drifted off reading about magical theory in the Orient. _"What now?"_ she wondered, irritated.

Her empathic senses picked up severe panic nearby and she transported herself to the source. The soft blue of her dimly lit bedroom gave way to the canary yellow of the suite's small, bright bathroom. She landed on the counter and nearly toppled into the sink, but righted herself at the last moment by wrapping one of her legs around the body in front of her.

"Whoa!" Beast Boy shouted. "Some privacy, Rae?" He pulled out of her accidental embrace and backed up with his hands still grasping at his recently gelled hair.

She pulled a face at the use of her nickname. "Some quiet, B?" she retorted and crossed her arms and legs. Her cloak fluttered around her as she settled and she flipped her hood up to cover her embarrassment.

_"Thank Azar he's clothed," _Raven thought as she noticed the new outfit: a black and grey plaid button-up matched with dark wash skinny jeans. "No Hawaiian shirt? You looked great in floral print."

"Quit it, Raven. I'm running late!" he complained.

"For what?" Raven asked, eyebrow quirked.

Beast Boy rushed forward and dunked his hands beneath the running water.

"My fans," he answered, indignant. "I needed some beauty sleep to rest up for the night and overslept. Then," he stopped to inspect himself in the mirror before squirting soap on his hands and started scrubbing beneath the faucet. "I woke up with bed head," he finished mournfully.

"And you thought stealing Robin's hair gel would solve your problems?" she asked, flicking her gaze to the familiar-looking spikes on the changeling's emerald head.

He pouted and dried his hands off with a towel hanging on the wall to his right. "I didn't know what else to do."

Raven slid off of the counter. _"I'm going to regret this,"_ she thought. "Need some help?"

"What are you gonna do?" He asked and looked toward the exit behind Raven.

"Fix it," she answered through gritted teeth.

He narrowed his eyes as if considering his options, then took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Do your worst."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Before you freak out, I want to warn you that I am not digging my hands into that mess." Instead, she summoned a shadowy claw and used it to gently style his hair, swooping it this way and that until she found a look that satisfied her. Finished, she stepped forward and gently grasped him by the shoulders to rotate him toward the mirror. "What do you think?"

He peeked one eye open, then the other. "Rae, this is awesome," he said excitedly. He tilted his head at different angles. "A faux hawk," he said thoughtfully. "I never woulda thought to try that."

Raven shrugged. "Don't mention it."

"You got a mirror so I can check out the back?"

"Nope, but I can assure you it looks fine."

Surprisingly fine, actually. "Personally, I think it's a little too relaxed to be considered to be considered a 'faux hawk,' but I wanted it to tilt a bit to the side so that's—that's what I came up with." She trailed off self-consciously.

"Very nice," he complimented, tapping his chin, thoughtful. The motion brought attention to his new gloves—solid black and soft cloth that contrasted with the grey ones he wore with his uniform.

"Well, have fun tonight," she said, then backed away and headed toward the door.

"Do me one more favor?" he asked, still admiring himself in the mirror.

"No," she replied in a flat tone and exited the room.

Beast Boy followed her out into the empty suite lobby. "Please, Rae? I'm already super late and it'd take you two seconds to zip me there and back."

"Ask Cyborg," She stepped onto her room and shut the door.

"He already left," he whined.

Raven sighed. _"How can I get out of this?"_

A green snake slithered in beneath the door.

"Get out of my room," she seethed at the reptile.

The snake morphed back into Beast Boy. "If I miss it I'll have to come back here and bother you all night."

"I'll be asleep soon," she lied.

He waggled his eyebrows mischievously. "I drank an espresso as soon as I woke up; I'll be awake for hours, yet."

"Make a peep and I will transport you to the moon and leave you there."

That gave him pause. He blinked, shocked, then allowed a smile to spread again. "No you wouldn't. You'd miss me too much."

"Ridiculous," she muttered.

"Please," he pleaded and sank to his knees where he grasped at her cloak and sobbed into the dark fabric. "I'll never ask you for anything ever again."

"Okay, okay!" she barked. "Just get off of me."

He leapt up. "Thanks Rae, you're the best."

"I know," she joked dryly. She shook out her cloak. "Now where do you need to go?"

**Writing in a Tokyo setting is haaaarrrd. Every time I add in something not American I spend fifteen researching it with Google image searches and wikipedia-and I still have no idea how accurate my descriptions are. So if you notice any inaccuracies, please do me a favor and tell me in a review. Eh?**

**Still a few more short chapters to do in Japan and then we'll fly on back to Cali.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3: Dinner. Almost.**

Raven raised her cloak and beckoned Beast Boy to come nearer so she could transport them both to his designated rendez-vous point. Just before he reached her, she held up a finger.

"What?" he asked.

"You know that saying 'hold on tight?'" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Don't."

Her cloak lengthened to envelope the changeling, and both of them phased through the hotel floor and raced away in a miasma of shadow.

They arose from the ground miles away, rising into a wash of neon lights and blaring horns. Raven deposited Beast Boy into the middle of a busy square with a name she couldn't pronounce, and appeared beside him in the next instant.

"Ladies!" Beast Boy shouted. "The Beast is here." Hands on hips, dark glasses perched on his green nose, chest puffed up and exposed by his half unbuttoned dress shirt, he waited for the answering cry of his excited fangirls, but heard nothing but the hustle and bustle of city life one usually expected in urban areas.

"I guess no one cares," Raven commented.

Beast Boy kept up his triumphant stance for at least thirty seconds, but as people passed by without scarcely taking notice of him, his smile, ears and arms drooped lower and lower. Finally, he relaxed his hands at his sides. "Come on," he said, defeated.

"Titan!" someone shouted behind them. Beast Boy turned toward the voice, hopeful.

They saw a young woman running toward them. He smiled widely and his fang jutted out with his elation.

"Hello!" he called out. She passed by without a glance in his direction. "Goodbye?"

"Titan Raven!" the woman yelled enthusiastically. She sprinted over to the cringing sorceress and produced a pen and newspaper featuring a story on the Titans and accompanying pictures. "You are my favorite" she said in accented English. "Please sign?" she asked.

Raven hesitated and looked to Beast Boy uncertainly. "Sure," she finally agreed. She took the pen and signed an inelegant scrawl in the corner.

"Thank you!" the teen exclaimed. She took back the newspaper and pen and flounced away with a final bouncing wave.

"Figures," the changeling grumbled.

"What?" Raven asked, eyeing the other people looking her way and talking behind their hands as she walked to Beast Boy's side.

"I knew this was too good to be true."

The crowd that had gathered around them began to close in. But they didn't care about Beast Boy. Instead, they all waved excitedly at Raven as her gaze swept over them all. She looked at her friend, his eyes were fixed on a pebble he moved with the toe of his boot.

"Want to..." Raven started then trailed off. She glanced uneasily at the people surrounding her.

"Huh?" Beast Boy grunted.

She sighed. "We could get something to eat," she shrugged. "At least the night wouldn't be a complete loss."

"Er yeah, I guess," Beast Boy shrugged.

A bold admirer stepped forward, a camera around his neck and wearing a T-shirt with her grimacing face on the front.

"Not here, though," she added. "People are beginning to stare-"

"Finally!"

"-At me."

"Oh." Beast Boy moved closer and allowed Raven to grip his waist so she could transport them in her cloak. "Let's go, then," he sighed dejectedly.

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

Starfire knew exactly where to take them when Robin requested a place to escape: Tokyo Tower, her North Star, and the spot of their first almost-kiss.

Maybe they could continue where they had left off the last time.

The Tower, modeled after it's mother in the Paris of France, was even more spectacular at night time than during the day, it's myriad lights lit up so it looked to be covered in a _glorgl_ of lightning-bugs. The firefly lights surrounded her and Robin as she touched down on the observation deck level, set immediately beneath the broadcasting equipment that sent TV waves from the spire's tip far above them.

"Will this suit your purpose?" she asked.

"Definitely," he answered, gazing out at the sea of buildings below them. "It's gorgeous here, Star."

"I am glad you approve," she smiled. "However, I must beg your forgiveness for...exploding the cover?"

He snickered. "I think we 'blew' our cover as soon as we walked out of the hotel. Besides," he dropped his gaze to the railing he had his arms crossed upon. "I've been looking forward to some alone time with you for awhile."

"I have as well," she replied with a soft smile.

"By the way," he started, and flicked his eyes over to her for a second before fixing them ahead again. "You look beautiful in that dress."

"I th-"

"I mean, you look beautiful without the dress too," he gushed, then shook his head. "Not in a naked sort of way-ah, I didn't mean to say that. It's-"

She put a hand on his arm and he trailed off, horrified. "I understand what you are attempting to communicate, and I am flattered."

"Thanks," he said. He inhaled deeply, stood straight and faced her; she rotated slightly to do the same. "Starfire, you-no matter what you are wearing-are beautiful, inside and out, but especially tonight, in that dress, looking at me the way you are."

Her breath hitched in her throat.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you that earlier," he fidgeted with one of his belt loops, confidence dimming. "I keep forgetting I'm allowed to say those things, now."

"Now?" she questioned, blushing.

"Yeah, uh, now that we're-since what happened earlier and all."

"I appreciate your new found candor," she assured him.

He grinned and laid his hand out on the rail; it looked awkward sitting there, palm up. Did he need to stretch his arm out?

"You know," he started, breathless, "You have no idea how many times I've had to stop myself from saying something to you or touching you in ways that-that friends don't do, and now I don't have to worry about it anymore. Really, it's a huge relief."

_"Oh, his hand,"_ she realized, and wove her fingers through his.

"I have a confession of my own," she giggled nervously. "I feared I may have offended you earlier when I asked you to accompany me tonight."

"Really?" he asked, surprised. "Why's that?"

"While preparing for our outing, Raven informed me it is the 'faux pas' to ask the boy to dinner. Apparently, according to Western culture I should have waited for your invitation."

Robin peered at her skeptically. "Raven told you you should've waited for me?"

"No," Starfire answered carefully. "She expressed pride in my initiative."

"And?" Robin prompted. "It's Raven, there had to be more."

Starfire blushed. "And she said you would have never 'made the first move' anyway."

"Ouch. So little confidence," he chuckled. "But I can see why she may have thought that." He leaned closer and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "For what it's worth, I'm really glad you asked me out tonight. There's...no where else I'd rather be right now."

"Nor me," she agreed.

She raised her free hand to his bicep and leaned her head against his shoulder. A sigh of contentedness escaped her, and they stood there in comfortable silence, staring out at the city.

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

"Where are we?" Beast Boy asked when they materialized on a busy street.

"The last place I remember seeing food," Raven answered. She hadn't eaten at the restaurant she'd brought them to, but the smells that came out of it when she'd passed by during her exploration of the city were mouth-watering.

"Are you good with this?" Raven asked, indicating the brick building in front of them.

"I think I can find something," he shrugged cheerfully.

A hostess greeted them as soon as they walked in, wearing a white button down shirt and starched black dress pants. _"Konichiwa,"_ she called out.

"Um...you wouldn't happen to speak English, would you?" Raven asked, hopeful.

The hostess gave them an assessing look as she registered their clothing and unique skin colors, then babbled something incomprehensible to Raven. She directed them to a secluded corner, spread two menus onto the chopstick-laden mats on the floor and bid them a farewell-presumably, because she left immediately after.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Raven muttered, staring at the floor-level dinette settings.

"Aw cheer up, Rae," Beast Boy told her as he settled onto a straw mat. "And don't forget to take your shoes off."

Raven placed her shoes beside Beast Boy's by the wall and took up the lotus position on the other side. "How are we supposed to order?"

Beast Boy considered the menu, nodded to himself, and smiled jubilantly. "Pictures," he said wisely, and pointed at the tiny rectangles of photographed food.

Raven was about to spout off a retort when another young woman in a uniform identical to the hostess's approached them.

"Hello," the waitress greeted them brightly in slightly accented English. "I was told customers requested an English-speaking server. Imagine my honor and surprise to find two of the Teen Titans!" she smiled joyfully yet respectfully; nothing like the obsequious excitement of Raven's earlierfans.

_"Speaks my language and she hasn't invaded my personal space," _Raven thought approvingly._ "Jack pot."_

"See, Rae? I told you it would work out!"

The waitress gave a shallow bow. "My name is Makoto. If you need anything please say my name and I will come as soon as I am able. Do you need help ordering?"

Raven nodded helplessly, but Beast Boy piped up without hesitation.

"Do you guys do _shojin ryori_?" he asked. "I'm a vegetarian." The ease with which the foreign words slid off of his tongue indicated he spoke them often.

The waitress blinked, apparently as surprised as Raven. "Yes. Actually, we have received much praise on our _modoki-ryori_ dishes. I can recommend an excellent eel dinner if you like tofu."

"Tofu's the best," Beast Boy replied. "And can you make sure they don't use _dashi_ in my rice?"

"Is soy sauce acceptable?"

"You're reading my mind, babe," he winked.

Minako smiled. "And for you, miss?"

"Surprise me," Raven answered blandly. "Whatever the chef recommends."

"It will be the finest Japanese dish you have ever tried," Minako assured her. "I will return. Would either of you like some tea?"

"Yeah."

"Please."

Minako bowed again and departed for the kitchen.

"I never knew you to be such a dare devil," Beast Boy said in a teasing voice.

"What? About my order?" She scoffed lightly. "I had no idea what I wanted. I like fish though, I guess, and I'll try whatever she brings."

He peered at her wide-eyed. "What have you been doing for food since we got here?"

"Mostly pointing at stuff that smells good and throwing money at the street vendors until they give it to me. "

"And how's that been working out for ya?" Beast Boy laughed.

"I think I may have eaten something's eggs yesterday."

"Was it _roe?"_

"I don't know. It was a bowl of small pink balls. Not bad, all things considered."

"Ha ha, nice."

"You seem pretty comfortable in this place," Raven observed.

Beast Boy brightened. "Next to my favorite manga shop in Jump is a great Japanese restaurant. It's owned by a couple from Okinawa, so their stuff's pretty legit. I was real scared at first to go in, but they've been awesome about finding me stuff to eat, what everything's called and how to do their etiquette."

_"'Do their etiquette,'"_ Raven silently repeated to herself. "And what was the 'dash' ingredient you mentioned earlier?"

_"Dashi_ is, like, dried tuna, and it's in most 'vegetarian' food in Japan," he explained. "Like Cyborg, the Japanese seem to think every meal has to have meat in it, so they cheat and put _dashi_ in everything."

Raven rolled her eyes and picked up the menu, flipping leisurely through the pages. "What's this?" she asked, pointing to a photo of raw fish lined with some kind of garnish.

_"Sashimi."_

"And my breakfast this morning. And this?" She pointed to a pouch made of a beige substance filled with rice."

_"Inarizushi,"_ he grinned. "Please tell me you tried it and loved it."

"Lunch," she answered hesitantly. "And it tasted decent."

"Yes!" he said victoriously. "You tried tofu!"

Raven flung her napkin at him. "Shut up."

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

Robin shifted his weight to his other footfoot and the paper bag with their dinner rasped loudly against Starfire's hip.

He pulled away and presented her with the bag. "Um, you might want this back," he said.

She took it and withdrew his tempura. "And you may want this." He reached for it but she held it back at the last second. "Allow me to warm it for you?"

"Sure," he agreed. "Thanks."

She summoned a spark of green fire and welled it in the palm of her hand, then brought it to hover over the cold tempura. She released a bit of heat, controlling it so as to warm the food without igniting the carton that held it.

"That's still amazing to see no matter how often I see it ," he said when she finished.

"I thank you," she said and handed back his food. He took it and tried a bite of deep-fried broccoli. "And may I say, it is flattering to hear my abilities have risen a step above 'awesome" in your mind," she teased, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

He choked, then coughed to clear his throat. "I wondered when that would come up," he said sheepishly. "But really, it wasn't my fault."

"Oh? How is that?" she giggled.

He took another bite to stall. "You ambushed me," he said laughingly. "I so wasn't ready to have that conversation."

Starfire chuckled weakly and clutched at the railing.

"Did I say something wrong?" he asked,

"Oh, no," she rushed to assure him. "It is...that night. I was angry at the time, but looking back on it brings me shame for my reaction." The mood immediately darkened between them, and Starfire realized too late she should not have mentioned anything. "My apologies. It is bad..." she searched for the phrase, "luck? To bring up moments of past distress during new beginnings."

"Wait-what were you talking about?"

Starfire sighed, silently pleading. "Let us discuss more cheerful subjects on the first of our dates, please? You may tell me how you amused yourself beneath the stage earlier, or how you reacted when I engaged in lip contact with the Japanese boy." She grinned impishly while waiting for his reply.

"No," he pressed, concerned. "What were you ashamed about?"

She pursed her lips, resigned. "My reaction to your reaction to Cyborg's teasing."

Robin rotated to face her fully, his head cocked in confusion.

Starfire continued. "I never explained myself once we arrived back on Earth. You were uncomfortable with the subject of 'the girlfriend,' and I did not wish to push you by bringing up the conversation once more." She stared out at the ocean of neon lights below them. When she began again, her voice sounded smaller, self-conscious. "I thought, perhaps, if our relationship progressed, we would discuss the rest then, but nothing happened until...and now we are here but it is not the time to talk about such matters. I never apologized for overreacting however. I wish you to know I regret not being able to 'keep my cool' during such a calamitous situation."

Robin set his tempura down by his feet and cleared his throat. "There's nothing to explain, Starfire," he said. "You're a lot better at emotions than me is all."

She snorted. "Lack of emotional control is what led to my uncooperative behavior, so I would not say I am 'better' at the emotions. I knew it would not be appropriate to talk about the 'girl friend' on that planet, but my emotional instability left me powerless in a foreign place and I panicked. I only knew of two ways to resolve my confusion: reconcile the matter with you or fully ignore it and find emotional stability on my own."

"You're being too hard on yourself," he offered awkwardly. "You wanted to talk to me but I kept freezing you out-"

Her eyebrows shot up in confusion.

"-Avoiding the topic."

"Mostly because our lives were in danger," she added.

"Well if I'd known you were grounded because of it I would've made a stronger effort to get over myself," he laughed shyly.

"I did not wish to tell you of my groundedness at all," she admitted. She fixed him with a serious look, hesitant.

"What is it, Star?" he encouraged. He laid a hand on one of hers wrapped around the rail. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"Just as you tell me anything?" she blurted out. His hand slid off. Her eyes widened. "I apologize. I did not mean it like it sounds. I only meant that we both keep secrets to ourselves that we share with no one-for our own protection."

"Mmm," he grunted.

"I resent that an emergency forced me to divulge the impetus of my powers."

"I know, he said brusquely.

She tried again. "To compare, it would be akin to your mask falling off during combat."

His face softened, and he reached for his mask, as if to ensure it was fixed firmly to his cheeks.

"That is not how you imagined you would share your identity with your friends," she smiled sympathetically. "Personally, I would have preferred to share this information in my own time, but I wonder if I have been guarding my privacy too closely."

"No, it's okay. I understand."

She slowly shook her head back and forth. "I fear you do not. But if you would permit me, I would like to help you understand.

He swallowed, suddenly nervous. "You don't have to-"

"I do," she interrupted, firm. "After we came back to Earth we quickly resumed our normal interactions and I convinced myself I did not need to tell you, but after 'the kiss,' I believe in the interest of full disclosure it is important that you know the details.

He licked his lips, as though they were suddenly dry. "Okay, like I said before, you can tell me anything."

**Thanks for reading, and thanks in advanced for reviewing if you decide you have the time. I'm particularly interested in learning if I messed anything up regarding the accuracy of the Japanese element, in particular BBxRae's experience in the restaurant. I wikipedia'd the crap out of it, but who knows how it reads to someone familiar with it. **

**Tune in soon for chapter 5!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Look at me, updating relatively quickly. :) Warning: angst ahead.**

In Tokyo, the teenaged superheroes enjoyed their time free from duty, but back in Jump City, destruction reigned.

White, grotesque monsters had invaded the city perimeter scant hours before, and the Titans East found themselves helpless to stop them.

Hastily gathered eyewitness accounts gathered told of mysterious invaders-giants with red eyes and hulking limbs—that had come out of the mountainside itself, materializing into white abominations that absorbed grass and dirt into their skin to camouflage themselves against the hills they traveled down. Some described them as fairy tale beasts: creatures with the power to emulate and weaponize nature itself, summoned by an unknown master to pursue an unknown agenda at any cost.

A brief altercation with the investigating Titans East at the city limits only agitated the beasts. Naturally, the teen heroes responded by increasing hostilities, but the monsters resisted the Titans' attacks with little effort, and soon passed by them with the ease of waves over rocks.

A technological problem compounded suspicions regarding the group's emergence: an unexplained electro-magnetic surge knocked out the city's power and satellite signals minutes after they met the city's substitute custodians, leaving the city a field of black. The timing could not have been coincidental: even the Titans communicators were fried.

Back at the scene of the invaders' first appearance, Bumblebee fought the urge to tear her hair out in frustration. Mas y Menos had just reported new sightings of the monsters in other parts of Jump. According to the twins, the monsters-several dozen total-had cropped up in all different directions, and each group seemed to be moving toward the same place: Titan Isle.

"We've identified their trajectory," Bumblebee barked to her teammates. "They're heading for the Tower, and nothing we've thrown at them has done anything except make 'em mad." She looked in turn at each of her teammates' grimy, defeated faces. "We focus on evacuation. Aqualad, take the docks; Speedy, you're downtown; Mas y Menos, get to the industrial district."

Speedy and the twins nodded and took off on foot. Aqualad hesitated. "How about you?"

"The Wayne building. If there's any way to get a signal for help, It's there."

"But how? Our communicators are broken."

Bumblebee's fingers sparked and the charge swam to the gold and steel stingers held tightly in her fists. "I'm thinking they just need a little power."

She zoomed high into the air and headed for the Wayne Enterprises skyscraper at city center. "Should'a told those guys to come straight home," she seethed. "What are they doing, now?"

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

Half a world away, Cyborg skipped merrily through the aisles of a high-end electronic store, his arms filled with a plethora of gadgets to update the Tower, the T-Car, and the Titans communications system.

Of all of his new toys, he especially appreciated the ones that made use of holographic projections as the potential for technological development nearly made him drool.

He hummed cheerfully to himself as he marched up to the checkout line. They sure didn't have this stuff back home.

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

Once Beast Boy and Raven had thoroughly explored the menu, conversation started to lag and Beast Boy's aura changed as they slipped into silence. His earlier disappointment returned and rolled off of him in waves, which in turn disturbed Raven's peace.

_"I'm going to regret this,"_ Raven sighed to herself. "What are you thinking about?"

"What?"

"You're pensive; it scares me."

Beast Boy continued to leaf through his menu. "Just thinking," he said calmly without looking up.

"Care to share?"

"Just funny is all," he grumbled.

"What?" Raven asked.

He flashed her a sour smile and glanced up with sad eyes. "I practiced my signature for a half hour this afternoon and you're the one who got to show off your chicken scratch."

"Chicken scratch?" Raven asked in a flat voice.

He smirked. "Yeah. Who taught you how to write-the family dog?"

"I didn't have pets in Azarath; Mother didn't let me. She did, however, try to teach me calligraphy. She failed."

Beast Boy let out a genuine laugh before his expression saddened.

"Stop pouting," Raven ordered.

His smile wavered. "Pouting?" he repeated, incredulous. "Who's pouting? Not me-I'm in Tokyo, where tofu is a beloved staple food, sitting across from a beautiful gal mere hours after becoming one of Japan's newest celebrities. What's there to pout about?"

"You tell me. You're the one leaking self pity and insecurity."

The smile collapsed. "Could we not do this?" he asked in a flat voice. "I'm pretending to have fun, you're pretending to have fun-I think we've got a good thing going on here."

She set her menu flat on the table. "What makes you think I'm pretending?" she asked, careful to keep the defensiveness out of her voice.

He dropped his chin to his crossed arms and looked out the window, "'Cause you wanted to stay in tonight, reading your books and hiding from your fans. You're only doing this to cheer me up."

"That's not true," Raven denied. Beast Boy looked up at her with skeptical eyes. "Not completely. Yes, I had intended to stay in tonight, and you're right that I wanted to avoid people gawking at me, but really I wanted to avoid having to explore the city by myself again; it wasn't enjoyable the last time."

Beast Boy's chin rose a few inches. "You didn't like being by yourself?"

"I didn't say that," Raven corrected him quickly. She considered her next words carefully. "I speak six languages, so foreign tongues don't usually present problems for me. Here, there was an unmistakable language barrier which made everything more difficult. I couldn't order food, ask questions, make conversation or read anything except for a bubble gum wrapper. Everyone else had plans tonight so I knew if I went out I'd be alone. And that didn't appeal to me."

Beat Boy sat up straighter, and a cautious grin crept into place. "But since my thing didn't work out you figured you'd take advantage of the unexpected company?"

The return of their waitress saved Raven from having to answer.

"Ready for your tea?" Minako asked. Without waiting for an answer, she set two steaming cups of a pea green liquid onto the food trays.

"Thanks," Beast Boy told her.

"I will return shortly with your food," she promised, and strode away.

"If it's any consolation, I don't think you were stood up tonight," Raven offered when the waitress walked out of earshot.

"Hmm?" Beast Boy hummed, sipping at the fresh green tea.

"Your...fan girls seemed quite reluctant to let you go earlier. I'm sure they would have jumped at the chance to meet you again." She tried to make the words sound confident, but they came out lackluster.

"You think?"

"Definitely. Um. And that was before you jazzed up your appearance for tonight. If they could see you now they'd go crazy."

He regarded her with half-lidded eyes and slumped against an arm propped up on the table at his elbow. "Please continue, the enthusiasm in your voice is incredibly convincing," he said sarcastically.

_"And people say I'm the snarky one."_ "No, really," she tried again. "I'm sure you'd be irresistible to them."

"Drawing from personal experience, Rae?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

"More like my limited reserves of compassion," she deadpanned. "Careful you don't use it all at once."

He became serious again with his next breath. "Why do you think no one showed up?"

Raven shrugged. "Translation error? Japanese is a hard language to learn for native English speakers, and you tried to translate using a cheap phrasebook in the middle of a screaming crowd."

He turned wistful. "So somewhere there's a huge group of fan girls chanting my name and waiting for me to show up. They'll be devastated once they figure out I'm not coming."

"Don't worry about them. They'll probably convince themselves you're out saving them from Godzilla or something."

He snorted.

"You laugh, but the whole thing will make you mysterious to them. You'll be unattainable, and thus, more desirable."

"'Zat the angle you're going for, Rae?" he asked cheekily.

"You know it. Speaking of your jazzed up appearance, I like your new gloves."

He glanced at the pleather racing gloves with disinterest and smiled at her. "Thanks. The other ones didn't match my outfit. Gotta accessorize, right?"

"Aren't you going to take them off to eat?"

He shrugged and unwrapped his chopsticks. "I don't usually."

"I guess not," Raven conceded. "I guess I never paid attention before." The other ones were so commonplace she'd long since dismissed them as a part of him-like his skin color or bad jokes. Having finally noticed the new ones, they stuck out in her vision. And why did it occur to her now that she'd never seen his hands before? Beast Boy's gloves stayed on like Robin's mask-swimming, sleeping-he never removed them. Why?

Some OCD complex where he didn't like to dirty his hands? She scoffed inwardly. The chronic disaster zone where he slept disproved that notion.

Maybe he wished to conceal one of his animalistic traits? But that didn't make sense-he prided his fang and pointy ears.

"Raven, you're staring."

"Am I?" She was, and Beast Boy had casually tucked his hands into his armpits to hide them. "Sorry, dazing, I guess."

He smiled without joy. "I'm sure you'll get used to them. Hey look, food's here."

"That was fast," Raven commented.

"I'm sure heroes always get the best customer service."

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

"Robin, I trust you implicitly," Starfire began. "You are my best friend and there is no one in the universe I hold closer to my heart . Regardless, I feel I must impart to you the enormity of this information: you must never abuse this knowledge."

He nodded, stepped closer to her and gathered her quivering hands in his. "I promise."

She took a deep breath. "Complete emotional control is the key to the value of a Tamaranian warrior. You already know that our flight is derived from joy, but there is more." Another deep breath. "Our great strength stems from self-confidence, and lack thereof leaves us as powerless as our Earthen counterparts."

"I see. And your starbolts?"

"They are fueled by fury that burns as a fire in my heart. Conviction that my fury is justified allows that fire to spread to the surface."

"Anything else?"

"When I feel invincible, I am."

He looked at her quizzically.

"Nearly," she added. "Like my strength, the more strongly I feel the emotion, the stronger the effect it has."

"That would explain a lot," he mumbled to himself.

"Yes?"

"Yeah, um, I noticed a long time ago that major blows affect you arbitrarily. Sometimes you get hit with the kind of force that would kill me and you're fine-other times a lesser hit knocks you to the ground-dazes you. I guess you didn't feel so invincible those times?"

"Sometimes. Mostly I am the victim of surprise-such as when Terra attacked us and toppled me over a cliff with a boulder meant for you."

"But you weren't unaware," he argued. "You had time to push me out of the way."

"You are correct," she admitted. She tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and kept her head forward. "But when I saw you were in danger, I did not feel so invincible."

"I see."

"It is also difficult to summon a false emotion-especially multiple ones at once that conflict with one another; I must feel joy to fly but fury to fire my starbolts. It can be tiresome at times. Other times, I must summon joy amongst inexplicable sorrow-such as facing Trigon while mourning the loss of Raven, or staying strong when Slade forced you to fight against us."

"Wow. It sounds stressful to say the least. No wonder you're happy all of the time. If you brooded like me you'd never leave the ground."

She shook her head. "My control is unimpressive. On Tameran, we have a league of warriors who train from birth to have complete control over their emotions. To them, anger, joy, confidence-they are not reactions to external stimuli, but tools to use in battle, summoned at will."

"It sounds like you admire them."

"I do. To not be chained by emotions is something many people-even on Earth-could appreciate."

"'Many' people," he repeated. "But not you?"

"You do the seeing through of me once again. It is a valuable trait to a warrior, but as a leader it can be dangerous."

"You speak as though you have personal experience.

"Blackfire consistently boasted about her capabilities as a fighter."

"I remember."

"I attribute the skill she demonstrated in our youth partially to her emotional control, but you have seen first-hand how her lack of compassion for others affects her judgment."

"Yes, I have," he said seriously.

She blushed, suddenly self-conscious. "I apologize again. I did not mean to engage you in such an intense conversation on our first date."

"'S' okay," he shrugged. "We have a lot to talk about. It was bound to come up sooner or later."

"Thank you for your understanding." She grasped his hand and they moved closer until their foreheads touched.

He seemed seconds away from kissing her when his T-comm began to sound an alert.

**A/N: **

**1.) Anyone know who the white monsters are? ;)**

**2.) I don't know if Bumblebee produces the electrical charges mentioned, but for the sake of this story, she does. Also, I made her stingers gold because it conducts electricity incredibly well, and steel because gold is soft and wouldn't be suitable for combat, so to compromise I decided to give her steel rods coated in gold.**

**3.) We know a Wayne Enterprises building exists in Jump because "The Apprentice, Part 1" in season 1 includes a fight between Robin and the Titans that takes place on a building with a gigantic "Wayne" sign on it.**

**4.) In case Raven seems a bit out of character, it's because she's bothered enough by an uncharacteristically depressed Beast Boy to be motivated to alleviate some of his sadness. She'll go back to being impatient and awkward soon enough. :)**

**5.) The explanation Starfire presented to Robin is my own, including the detail about Tameran's elite warriors. Comic!Starfire's powers are not influenced by emotion, and cartoon!Starfire never mentioned anything about invulnerability, but it makes sense considering she only takes damage if the writers need her to, so I included it.**

**And a note to those who don't care for the BB/Rae storyline: if you're here for Rob/Star, you can skip BB/Rae without any consequence to the main storyline. But if you like it, please keep reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello all, thanks for coming back for chapter six. **

**A warning before we proceed: this latest chapter might be a disappointment for those looking for excitement and action, as it's a bit of a bonus chapter I wrote about Beast Boy and Raven to develop their friendship and explore the implications of the "Things Change" episode where "Terra" returns. Skip it if you'd like-the plot train should be back on the right track with the next chapter when Robin and Starfire's date is interrupted by a series of phone calls that raise the Boy Wonder's suspicions about what's going on back home. **

**Also, a special thanks to all of my reviewers, favoriters and followers! I truly appreciated the thoughtful review from Aspectabund, the encouragement and kind words from ****Gweneveire**** and Hiei's Cute Girl, and especially the glowing review from RoswAlien-Lady, which had me smiling all day today.**

**Now, onward and upward!**

Makoto and the hostess approached the table with their arms full of food. The hostess set up a tray to lay the food down, and from there Makoto transferred everything to the mats. She began by laying down steaming hot towels, followed by bowls of rice set on the left of each mat, and soup filled with brown broth and bits of vegetable matter on the right. In front of Beast Boy, she set down a dish of a dark brown liquid and a plate of eel-fake eel, Raven reminded herself-with black skin and garnishes she'd seen on other local dishes but never learned the name of.

Makoto turned her attention to Raven next. Between the soup and rice, she set down a bowl of thick, tan-colored noodles steeped in broth and topped with finely chopped scallions. Makoto added a rectangular dish of pea green sauce and backed away with a bow. The hostess refilled their tea and took away the tray while Beast Boy examined his food, a smile lighting up his features.

"Wow it looks like real eel," Beast Boy commented. "Super impressive. Pass my compliments onto the chef, will you?"

"It would be my pleasure," she said, and returned Beast Boy's grin. She looked at Raven expectantly.

"Er-smells great," she offered.

"And I'm sure it tastes even better," Beast Boy included. "I mean, look at it!" He laid his hands demurely in his lap. "Itadakimasu," he said to Makoto.

Makoto smiled warmly at him. "Thank you," she said, and departed.

"Did I miss something?" Raven asked Beast Boy, one puzzled eyebrow raised.

"Etiquette, Rae," he chided her teasingly. "To the Japanese, appearance is as important as the taste, and they want to know if they made their stuff look good enough."

Raven looked down at the noodles steaming in their bowl, like a knot of tangled, skinless snakes. "Look good?" she questioned skeptically.

"Yup. Like my dinner: it's pretty enough to eat." He indicated the tar black skin on his plate.

"I think you might've been tricked," Raven told him. "That looks like real eel to me."

"Seaweed," he corrected, poking the black film with his chopstick. He lifted it up to show the interior: "Strained tofu with grated gobo roots." Finally, he pointed at the garnish surrounding the eel. "And tsuma."

"And what am I eating?"

"Udon noodles, broth, scallops." Again he used his chopstick to point to each item in turn. "Soy sauce," he said of the dark brown liquid in the small serving dish. "Wasabi," he indicated the green paste. "Miso soup with tofu, and white rice."

"Hmm." She lifted up the soy sauce dish with the intention of pouring it onto the rice.

"No!"

"What?" she asked exasperatedly.

"Etiquette. Follow me." He unrolled the damp towel Makoto had given him and wiped his hands. When finished, he rolled it back up and laid it back on the table. Raven reluctantly mimicked him.

Next, he picked up his chopsticks, pinched a sticky clump of rice between them, and dipped it into the soy sauce. Raven didn't do so well for her turn. The chopsticks felt foreign in her fingers, and she clumsily angled them to the rice bowl. Where Beast Boy had successfully transferred an entire bite full to the soy sauce, Raven could barely hold together two grains before the rest of the clump fell apart and back into the bowl.

"This is pointlessly tedious," she said monotonously. She dumped the contents of the soy dish into her rice bowl and stirred vigorously.

Beast Boy slapped his palm to his forehead. "We have work to do."

Beast Boy attempted to guide the reluctant sorceress through the rest of dinner, and as she practiced with her chopsticks, she slowly improved. She even tried a bite of the strange snake-noodle meal. "Decent," she allowed herself to say aloud, though privately she approved wholeheartedly.

Conversation turned to lighter topics of how they had occupied their time in town. Raven didn't say much except to elaborate on her disastrous tour of Tokyo, but Beast Boy had enough to talk about for the two of them, mostly focused on the local ladies.

"Then this hot girl who I've been chasing around all over town turns out to be one of Brushogun's minions! She like, rips off her top layer of clothes and suddenly she's covered in all this color, like she'd wandered into a paintball park with a target on her back."

Raven giggled at that.

They both froze.

Beast By gazed at her wide-eyed. "Did you-"

"Quit it."

"Was that-?"

"Don't ask."

"It was!" Beast Boy declared. "You laughed! At one of my jokes!"

She waved his enthusiasm away. "We've known each other for how long, now? I suppose you were bound to say something funny sooner or later."

"Three years, in answer of your first question," he gathered one of her hands into his, and her chopsticks stuck up menacingly between them. "I want you to know I'll treasure this moment forever."

Raven wrenched her hand away. "Keep talking about it and you won't live to see tomorrow."

"Pft. You threaten me too much, Rae. I know you'd never hurt me."

At Raven's scowl he leisurely added: "Unless your dad took over your body or something crazy like that." He nodded to himself, then looked back at her, suspicious. "That wouldn't happen, would it?"

"Not likely," she assured him. "But I wouldn't push it. More importantly, what makes you so sure I wouldn't go through with one off my threats?"

"Take this afternoon. When Rob and Star left, you yelled at Cy and chucked something at his head. But you haven't so much as dumped food on me in months and I annoy you way worse than him."

"I threw you out a window last week," she reminded him. "And pulverized you for taking unflattering pictures of me on the way here in the T-ship."

"Touché on the pulverization-I totally deserved it-but as for the window thing, that was a month ago," he conceded cheerfully. "Plus, it was an open window and I can fly, so I wasn't in any danger."

She ignored him. "Well, in my defense, I was in the middle of a nap when I snapped at Cyborg. But he's made of metal, so it's not like I hurt him."

"Hmph," Beast Boy shrugged.

"I'm sure he's fine." She decided to change the topic. "So why are you obsessed with girls all of a sudden?"

"You telling me the fact I'm a red-blooded young male isn't a good enough reason?"

Raven gave him a deadpan stare. "Robin and Cyborg are, too, but you don't see them fawning over fan girls."

Beast Boy twirled his chopstick between his fingers like a baton, and jabbed it into the air at the end of each phrase. "Robin's been chasing after his own personal fan girl for years, now, and Cyborg's-" he and the chopstick froze for a long moment. He laid it down on the table and regarded her seriously. "-Shy. But he's fine the way he is," he insisted.

Raven appreciated the protective tone he used, the defensive position he held as he waited for Raven to challenge him with another scathing remark. She didn't. "I agree."

Beast Boy nodded sharply before snatching up a chopstick and impaling an unsuspecting piece of tofu.

"My point is," Raven continued as he continued eating. "I'm not convinced it has anything to do with gender or age." She twirled an elongated noodle on her chopsticks like spaghetti on a fork.

"Would you believe my animal instincts are to blame?"

"Not for second," she said, and silently slurped up the noodle.

He gave a half-exasperated chuckle. "I haven't given it much thought, Rae. It's not like I sit in my bedroom analyzing what every single emotion or action means. I go with the flow." He traded in nonchalance for wistfulness. "These girls are the first ones to show interest in me since Terra. I guess that's meaningful if you choose to look for something in it."

"You aren't over her yet, are you?" she asked, curious.

He looked down at his plate and pushed his food around with his chopstick. "You're gonna think I'm stupid."

Raven blinked. "Usually, but not this time. You can tell me," she said sincerely.

He looked back at her, hesitated, and glanced back down. "I thought I was over her. She put us through enough that I should be, even if she helped us out at the end. But then she showed up after all of this time and it was like I was meeting her for the first time again-new opportunities, new hope. Or something stupid like that."

Raven nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Beast Boy had told them all about the Terra look-alike. They'd all been ready to dismiss his claims as a case of mistaken identity until he showed them the cave where Terra's body should have been, then produced the robot though which Slade allegedly used to speak of Terra as though she still lived.

There was also a video feed that showed Beast Boy leading "Terra" into the Tower and around the grounds. They had all been angry with him-even Starfire had exhibited quiet disappointment-but Robin's fury exceeded them all.

Beast Boy had brought someone who was at best a complete stranger and at worse a powerful enemy into their home without regard for security or his teammates. And he'd done it while the rest of them chased a mysterious monster around the city, which was a different set of problems entirely.

They hadn't beaten the monster either, which made everything worse. Eventually they'd lost track of it. Somehow, a twelve foot-tall monstrosity evaded a team of superhero tracker-detective-warriors, leaving no trace for a trail.

Robin only stopped punishing the changeling when Sykotech arrived and forced him to put his resentment behind him for the sake of the mission.

"Rejection sucks, Raven, and Terra's done it to me twice now. Plus she died. But she's the only one who's ever looked twice my way-until these fan girls. I like the attention is all."

"I can see why losing yourself in this is tempting, Beast Boy, but you have to understand that it isn't real. These girls don't know you-they know an image, and they will never appreciate you the way our friends appreciate and care about you."

He graced her with a half-smile she thought was more for her benefit than his.

She tried again. "I can empathize with what you're describing," she stated. She placed her suddenly clammy hands in her lap and continued. "Malchior deceived me into believing he desired me-and I realized afterward that his apparent feelings for me played into my attraction toward him. But then he betrayed me and suddenly I could see everything I was blind to. He didn't care about me, he used me. He complimented me not because there was truth to his words, but because he knew I wanted to hear it." Her thoughts turned to the crowds earlier and the liberties the people had taken. As if they had a right to touch her clothing, her hair, her skin. "I think about those people all vying for their chance at us and I'm not interested in the least. They think I'm heroic and beautiful because other people told them that first. I represent an ideal I would surely fail if they took the time to compare me to it objectively."

He frowned, as if about to argue with her, but she continued before he could speak, turning her head toward the exit so she didn't have to watch him watching her. "You speak as if we should be grateful for this kind of attention, but it's so fake it's repulsive to me. Yes, waiting for someone to care for who you truly are is difficult and hopeless at times, but you will be happier waiting for someone whose attraction is genuine, because settling for anything less would be a disservice to yourself." She turned to see Beast Boy staring raptly at her, waiting for her to continue.

When she didn't he spoke up again. "Is that what you're waiting for?"

She forced a smirk to cover the blush that warmed her cheeks. "I'm not waiting for anything or anyone. In fact, if it never happened I'd probably be fine because I doubt I'd be able to give up my personal space for long."

He blinked, and the look of concentration was replaced with one of mischief. "Yeah, you don't really strike me as the cuddly type. Maybe you could try online dating. It would definitely lower the chances of you immolating your dates when they try something." He cracked up at his own joke, and Raven rolled her eyes to keep from scowling.

"Makoto," she called out. "Check, please."

**A/N: **

**1.) I am not aware whether or not Beast Boy (in any medium) has a special affection for Japanese food or culture, but I have read so many stories that depict him as an uncultured idiot I thought it would be nice to let him be the know-it-all for once. Granted, it's funny to let Beast Boy embarrass himself and learn from the others, but alternatives are entertaining as well. Beast Boy grew up in Africa, was adopted by an indigenous tribe after his parents died, yet manages to maintain an optimistic, out-going demeanor, and is respectful of other people's cultures. I didn't think it'd be a stretch to suggest he'd be interested in Japanese culture if the opportunity came to him to learn about it (especially since Trouble in Tokyo established his love of mangas).**

**2.) According to Wikipedia (take it or leave it), it is customary to tell your host "Itadakimasu" after complimenting the food's appearance but before tasting it. Translated, it means "I humbly receive."**

**3.) I mean no offense by my rant about excited fans. Please keep in mind I wrote it from Raven's perspective. She sees herself as a hero, not a celebrity, and so the attention is unwanted not just because it threatens her self image but also her privacy; the celebrity lifestyle is not a gig she signed up for.**

**Thanks for reading, see you soon!**


	7. Chapter 7

Robin pulled away from Starfire and answered his ringing communicator.

Bumblebee appeared amid a background of steel, concrete and gray sky, and her face broke out in a huge grin as soon as she saw him.

"Robin!" she shouted, "It's—" Static interfered with her call, causing the video feed to come through as pixilated chaos and cutting off some of the words. "—bee!"

He couldn't tell if she sounded frantic or simply her normal, excited self. "Robin here," he responded. "What's the trouble?"

"No-trouble! Just-check-in-!"

"Did you catch that?" He asked Starfire, concerned.

"Not quite. Perhaps there is 'no trouble' and she is doing the 'checking in?'" She suggested.

Robin's lips tightened. "Maybe," he responded, then retracted his fingers from Starfire's grasp to hold his communicator in both hands. "Everything's fine here; we took down Sykotek and as of now plan on leaving tomorrow morning. What's your status?"

"Status is-good! -criminal activity-under control-!"

"Glad to hear it," Robin said, relieved. The connection hissed loudly, obscuring any response Bumblebee may have offered.

He tried again. "So we'll just see you tomorrow, then?"

"-!" The line crackled, then died.

"Bumblebee?" he attempted to re-dial her, but his screen gave him an error message without even ringing.

"I am sure they are fine," Starfire tried to reassure him. "They can handle themselves most adequately."

He dialed Speedy's T-comm anyway. The screen flashed: _"Initializing. Initializing. Connection Error."_

"I don't know," Robin disagreed, his instinctual paranoia prickling. "What if Slade came back, or the Brain's army is free already?"

He tried Aqualad next._ "Initializing. Initializing. Connection Error."_

"No one has personally seen Slade since we defeated Trigon, Robin, and we made sure that the Brain and his army are well-guarded. I am certain all is the okay."

Mas._ "Connection Error."_

"But the robot-Slade that Beast Boy-"

Menos._ "Connection Error."_

She smiled and squeezed his hand, and he found it hard to swallow over the lump that formed at the sight of Starfire gazing at him with those gorgeous green eyes of hers, moving steadily closer to him until he could smell the perfume on her skin. _"When did she start wearing perfume?" _he wondered.

"Trust your teammates," she implored. "They are more than competent enough to handle whatever situation might arise. Besides, we are many many miles away; if they needed aid, I am certain they would reach out to someone close by, such as Kid Flash."

"Kid Flash?" he gulped.

"Yes. You mentioned he and Jinx would be extracting her belongings from the hideout formally belonging to the Hive Five this week, did you not?"

He blinked. "Yeah, yeah I did." He backed up, and the distance cleared his senses as fully as if he had taken an antidote to Poison Ivy's serum. "I'll check in with him."

_"Initializing. Initializing. Initializing."_

_"Come on,"_ he silently urged._ "What's taking him so long?"_

_"Call unanswered. Leave a message?"_

Robin slammed his communicator shut. "Something's wrong," he said. "I can't get a hold of Titans East and now Kid Flash isn't answering?" He shook his head. "We need to go home, Starfire. We shouldn't have stayed this long, anyway." He saw her cringe as she registered the implications of his last words, watched her shoulders wilt as self-consciousness overtook her earlier confidence, but he didn't have time to take care of her sensitivities this second. His friends could be in danger.

He opened his communicator to call Herald. The trumpeter could transport them all back to Jump in a few scant minutes. They'd come back for the T-Ship later, and-_"Caller Unavailable."_

"Caller Unavailable?" he blurted out. "What does that even mean?"

"Cyborg hypothesized our communicators might not work in some of the dimensions to which Herald travels-he has not had enough time to test which ones," Starfire answered timidly.

"We're leaving," he told her firmly. "Now." He wrapped his arms around her waist in preparation of flight. "We need to get back to the hotel-"_ "She looks so scared all of a sudden."_ "-Wake the others and fly back to Jump." _"Later. I'll comfort her later."_ Her muscles tensed and she hugged him tight to her. She usually did just before a launch, but this time she hesitated, holding him to her longer than necessary. He felt his hands tangle in her hair, seemingly moving of their own accord, and he breathed in the lilac-scented shampoo she used as his nose nestled in her neck

"Robin, I..." she trailed off and laid a hand against his sternum, as if to push him away.

He brought his head up. "Star-" Over her shoulder he spotted the screen on his communicator flashing. _"Incoming call,"_ the words read. _"Kid Flash."_

He drew the right side of his body away from her to take the call, but kept his free arm tightly wound around her waist. "KF," Robin answered, relieved. "Are you-what happened?"

The speedster-from the waist up as could be seen on the screen-appeared in a state of distress, his clothes torn, his hair mussed, his mask fixed crookedly to his red and white splotched face. In the background, Robin could clearly see upturned tables, broken lamps and chairs tossed on their sides, as if a tornado had whirled through the tiny apartment his friend inhabited in Central City, Missouri.

"What?" Kid Flash asked, confused. "Nothing happened."

"But your uniform, your place."

A tuft of bubblegum pink hair appeared in the bottom left-hand corner, drawing the hero's attention downward before he snapped back to attention.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, remodeling, actually." He tilted the communicator upward and the tuft vanished, but Robin could still see his free hand bat away something outside the screen.

Robin scrubbed a hand down his face. "Is Jinx there?"

Kid Flash flushed from ear to Adam's apple, though he immediately began shaking his head in denial.

The witch in question stood up and moved in full view of the camera, dressed in her usual attire of striped stockings and black dress with full sleeves, and wearing her ever-present wicked smile. "Hi Robin," she purred. Her eyes traveled to somewhere behind Robin's shoulder, then settled on the spot where Starfire's hand now clutched at his tunic. She grinned suggestively at Kid Flash. "Looks like we're not the only ones who have been 'remodeling.'"

Kid Flash's embarrassment melted away, replaced by a look of mischief, his arms folded over his ribs and a wide smile creeping across his lips.

Robin pulled the rest of the way from Starfire, and her hand fell away from his chest.

"Something you forgot to tell me, boss?"

"Not one thing," he said, sharper than he'd meant to. "I need a favor."

KF straightened his posture and mock-saluted him. "Anything for you, boss."

"Status report on Jump."

The speedster slumped and his hand flopped to the side. "Anything but that."

"I just received a possible distress call from Bumblebee that was interrupted by variables unknown. I attempted to contact the other members of Titans East, but something's wrong with their communicators."

Ask Herald. He'd be way faster."

"Dimensionally unavailable. What's the big deal? You're going there anyway to pick up Jinx's stuff, aren't you?"

Kid Flash puffed up. "Been there and back; they don't call me the 'Fastest Boy Alive' for nothing."

"Though that's not always for the best," Jinx teased, and draped herself on his shoulder like a cat.

"Jinx," Kid Flash whined and rolled his eyes.

"Focus," Robin admonished them. "I still need you there. It's too far for Raven to teleport and it would take Starfire and Beast Boy too long to fly."

"Don't you have a jet?"

"If we left now we'd arrive in ten hours; that's too long."

"It's like 1900 miles away and we just came back from there last night," KF protested. "That'd take me close to three hours with Jinx, and before you suggest it-" he added upon seeing Robin ready to interrupt. "I'm not leaving her behind."

"Then you'd better get started."

Kid Flash groaned, but stopped when Jinx straightened and regarded him seriously.

"Honey, distress signal, remember? I know you're tired and...excited, but your team needs you. Come on, if we leave now we'd make it by ten o'clock Cali time. We'd still have the rest of the day to chill out with Titans East and relax in their big ole Tower."

He nodded, mollified, and faced the communicator. "If you don't hear from us in three hours, you'll know everything is fine."

"I'd rather hear from you either way," Robin said uneasily.

Kid Flash waggled his finger as though speaking to a naughty child. "Nuh uh. I'm on vacation; I'm not giving you one more minute of my time than is necessary. Besides, it's...what time there?"

"Eleven," Robin grunted.

Kid Flash whistled. "Exactly. I'm not waking you up at two in the morning to let you know everything's okay. You need your beauty sleep, boss; I know how grouchy you get otherwise."

"Fine. But be careful."

"Will do, Bird Boy," Jinx said. She swept the communicator up from Kid Flash's hand and winked as she thumbed the 'End Call' button. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of him. Ta ta for now." She twirled her fingers in a goodbye wave and the screen blanked.

Robin sighed.

"Do you feel better?" Starfire asked. Her tone approached nonchalance, but her concerned eyes gave away her worry.

"Somewhat," he admitted. "Still, we'd better get back. We have an early morning."

"Of course," she said.

He scanned through his communicator's contact list, hopeful to come across the name of someone he'd forgotten would be near Jump._ "Didn't Jericho say he had family in California he wanted to visit before he returned to the mountains?"_

She chanced a shy smile at him. "Perhaps when we return to Jump and you have seen for yourself that all is well, we may resume our date in another setting."

_"No, he said his...father lived in California, but indicated they weren't close so..."_

"Huh? Yeah, sounds good."

Starfire reached out and covered Robin's screen with her fingers.

"Robin?"

"What, Star?"

"Did you not say you wished to leave?"

He clipped his T-comm back into his belt. "Yeah, sorry, Starfire. I got a little-"

"Obsessed?" she offered, cocking her head with an expression of innocence a bit too convenient to be completely ingenuous.

"Distracted," he amended.

"Mmm," she hummed, and narrowed her eyes.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing you can think of," she said under breath, and floated with her arms outstretched so she could fly him by his hands, rather than holding him to her torso to torso. "Ready?"

"Yeah," he answered, and grasped her wrists tightly.

They took off into the starry night sky without another word between them, dinner and romance forgotten in light of the potential crises.

**Thanks for reading!**

**1.) Teen Titans trivia: Wally West (Kid Flash I) aided his Uncle Barry (Flash I) in Central City, Missouri until he became the Flash himself, at which time he moved to Keystone City, Kansas.**

**2.) And in case anyone's curious, I researched time zones, the distance between Missouri and California, and the expected flight time from Japan to California (though I shaved off some time because I figured the T-Ship would be faster than a commercial flight).**

**Ta ta for now!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello all,**

**It seems my chapters are getting shorter and shorter. I'll have to work on that...but for now, I figured I'd post what I have.**

The flight back to the hotel did not grant Starfire the pleasure she usually sustained from flying with Robin, and if his silence and fierce concentration told her anything, he felt the same.

When she released his hands upon his feet touching the sidewalk in front of the hotel, he broke away from her immediately and nearly sprinted to the door. He impatiently waited for the automatic doors to part for him and darted through them when they did.

Starfire sped after him, her sandals slapping loudly against the concrete as she clambered into the lobby, brightly lit despite the late hour. The clerk smiled at her but she paid him no heed past a hasty wave on her way to the elevator, where Robin stood tapping his right foot and waiting for the elevator to reach their floor.

It dinged once Starfire reached him, and he slipped inside with a quiet "Good timing."

_"Perhaps I should have taken the stairs,"_ she thought to herself._ "No,"_ she chided herself._ "It is not about me, or us; a problem has arisen in the Titans Network, and his leadership skills are needed."_ While she secretly wished he could switch effortlessly from date-Robin to leader-Robin and back again, she had learned long ago that Robin could not compartmentalize like she could; he would likely remain in the 'leadership mode' until they reached home.

Still, it hurt to be brushed away so quickly.

Mere hours ago they had shared in laughter and companionship; she had confided in him her people's greatest secret and they had nearly kissed. Then Bumblebee called and the caring, attentive Robin vanished. Still, he had comforted her in her fear until Kid Flash began the teasing, and he distanced himself from her once more. _"Why is it that in the presence of other people he changes his mind about us?"_

When the elevator reached the penthouse floor, Robin rushed out and through the living room without a single word. Starfire trailed after him, slowly. She paused when she heard the door to his bedroom rasp close, then padded over to the room opposite his where Raven would doubtlessly be asleep by now.

She glanced at Robin's door. "Good night," she whispered, and opened her bedroom door.

Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans

Robin strode over to the window, thankful he didn't have to share a room with Cyborg and Beast Boy next door. He retrieved a thin, cloth-sleeved package from the space between the wall below the window and the personal heating and cooling unit in front of it, and brought it over to his bed.

He withdrew a small tablet from the sleeve, about the size of both of his hands held together, and turned it on. As soon as the device buzzed to life he selected the web browser app and typed in the web address for the Jump City Gazette, ready to check out the headlines and attempt to isolate the cause of Bumblebee's distress signal.

_"The website_ .net_ is currently unavailable."_

"What?"

_"This may be due to the amount of web users logged in or a temporary maintenance check."_

He checked to make sure his tablet had connected successfully to the hotel's wi-fi and refreshed the screen, but the message remained.

_"Please try again later,"_ it advised.

_"If it's 11:18 p.m. here, it's..."_ He did the mental math._ "9:18 in Jump, a few hours after the latest news postings-no way they'd schedule maintenance for now."_ He opted to use a basic search engine instead and experimented with a series of keywords intended to draw out any articles written by other news organizations in the past twenty-four hours about Jump-related disasters, criminals, or the Teen Titans.

Twenty minutes of searching yielded nothing more than a snippet about Red X evading capture by the Titans East after a sighting in the city's tech district._ "Must be after a Xenothium fix,"_ Robin figured. The article's time stamp put the report around the same time Cyborg made the phone call to Bumblebee. She'd logged off in a hurry, citing an alert-_"It must have been Red X."_ After that, no problems reported.

He briefly contemplated going to bed; he hadn't lied to Starfire when he'd said they would need to rise early, but he couldn't clamp down on the paranoid part of him that told him something was wrong back home, and that he had only to look in the right place to find out what.

_"How about social media? If something's happened, someone would have posted about it."_

He tried Reddit first and searched through the same keywords as before, but the most interesting article seemed to revolve around Reddit writers' attempts to discern the identity of the Titan's leader. Fan favorites included a Brazilian gymnast heart throb and an American motorcyclist dare devil.

He tried Tumblr next and cycled through a series of tags. "Nothing," though he might have laughed about what he did find if he had been in a better mood. He found that Tumblr bloggers used the site to post pictures of the team members and speculate about their relationships. One photo taken at the Pizza Parlour captured Raven glaring at Beast Boy, who teasingly reached for a piece of untouched pizza on the sorceress's plate. "Can you feel the sexual tension?" The caption read.

"Good thing Raven doesn't know how to use a computer," Robin thought. "She'd flip if she saw this."

Twitter users "-Twits? Tweeters?"- commented on everything else, ranging from the Titan Tower's state of disarray (courtesy of Sykotech), to Titans East's second visit as Jump's substitute custodians, to commentary on Jinx's recent probationary induction into the Titans.

Yawning blearily, Robin selected the Youtube app and cycled through the usual search terms. Nothing jumped out at him, but he scrolled through the results anyway. The thumbnail of one video caught his attention: Starfire's vibrant red hair. He skimmed through the video's description and clenched his jaw at the summary: "First RobStar kiss caught on camera!"

"No," Robin whispered, and clicked on the video.

The screen filled with a shaky-cam's point of view of himself rooting through inky sludge to search for Starfire's body. Japanese chatter accompanied the footage, but Robin had no idea what the female speaker thought of the scene before her. The figures in the distance swam in and out of view as the camerawoman jogged closer, and the camera steadied just in time to catch Robin and Starfire leaning in to lock lips.

"So much for maintaining an air of professionalism," he grumbled quietly. "The kiss happened less than a day ago, and it's already on Youtube? I can't believe I didn't think about that—in this day and age, everything's recorded. I should just count myself lucky it hasn't already made it to the other realms of social media."

The video's time stamp marked its posting as only a few hours before. "No wonder. Give it until morning, I guess."

He groaned. As if Cyborg and Beast Boy didn't have enough to tease him about. At least he could count on Raven to be civil. But what would Starfire-

"Starfire!"

He hadn't even told her goodnight-just left her on the sidewalk after they'd touched down outside the hotel and scrambled for the elevator, intent on researching the situation in Jump.

"Not that there even was one." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "So I ruined our night for no reason."

He checked his watch. "One o'clock. She'll be asleep by now—I'll have to wait until morning to make it up to her."

He yawned but didn't have any interest in sleeping, yet. "Where's the closest flower shop?"


End file.
